


How to Break a Curse

by ayebibs



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Fluff, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, cursing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-07-12 22:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16004249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayebibs/pseuds/ayebibs
Summary: Almost five years ago, Keith was cursed by a witch. From the time that the sun goes down at night to the time it rises in the morning, Keith has to live his life as a cat. He tries to adjust to it, but when Shiro accidentally locks him out of his apartment one night, Keith ends up learning about his neighbor, Lance, who seems to like him way more as a cat than a human.Getting closer to Lance and his friends, for the first time in a long time, Keith feels like they might find a way to break the curse before it’s too late.





	1. Chapter 1

You know, ironically, Keith is a dog person.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t like cats. They’re fine. Shiro has a cat and Tama is… fine. If not a bit unfriendly.

If he had the choice, he’d be a dog. A big breed. He’d love to be a Siberian Husky.

Then again, curses aren’t generally engineered to give you what you want. 

Shiro says that he’s an American Shorthair once the sun goes down and he’s apparently very cute. Not that that’s any kind of consolation for spending so much of his life as a literal cat. 

He never really gets used to it, to tell you the truth. 

Keith tries to make things easier for himself. He leaves the television on so that he doesn’t get bored and he puts out some cat-safe, but edible food and water on the floor so that he doesn’t get hungry or thirsty. 

He can’t, however, expect for his brother to come to your apartment to pick up his cellphone that he left and for him to shut the door to the balcony while he’s on there. 

Keith jumps when it closes behind him. He whips around to see Shiro closing the blinds to the sliding door in front of him, effectively blocking him from view. Keith does his best to catch his attention, he meows loudly and thumps his paw against the door. It’s not nearly as effective as banging your fist on it. 

Who’s he kidding? It’s practically silent. 

He’s going to kill Shiro when morning comes around. 

In the meantime, he has to figure out how to last until the morning through the cold night. He continues to meow and tap at the door, hoping that Shiro might hear him and realize why the door was left open.

Instead, the door to the other apartment of the shared balcony slides open and someone steps out. Keith eyes Lance as he steps out and leans on the banister. He and his neighbor aren’t on the best terms, but the look on Lance’s face transfixes him. Normally when Lance sets his gaze on him, the distaste and annoyance is palpable. Ever since Keith laid into him for playing his music a little too loudly during the day, they haven’t been on good terms. Keith only realized later that he was just being cranky because he never gets a good night’s sleep. 

Tonight, Lance’s face is soft and doleful as he stares out into the distance. There’s a noticeable shine growing in his eyes that he wipes away with his fingers. He lets out a sad sigh and shakes his head. Keith feels like he’s intruding on Lance’s time to himself, as if this isn’t something anyone is supposed to see. 

In his defense, it’s not like there’s anywhere else to go, unless he wants to jump off the side and test if cats really always do land on their feet. 

Lance takes another few moments on the balcony, breathing deeply and sipping at the steaming mug in his hands. He straightens after shivering a few times and in the middle of his turn to enter his apartment, his eyes settle on Keith.

“Oh,” Lance says, walking up to the balcony divider. “Hey there, buddy.” Lance looks from him to the closed sliding door. “Are you stuck outside?” Keith walks up to him and jumps onto the divider, startling Lance and making him take a step back. Lance recovers quickly though, smiling at him. “You’re surprisingly friendly,” he pointedly glares at Keith’s apartment, “unlike your owner who’s left you out here.”

Keith feels like he should be offended, but then Lance’s thin fingers are gently scratching under his chin. The feeling of Lance carefully petting his head is surprisingly comforting. He doesn’t even realize that he’s nuzzling into Lance’s hand until he hears him laugh. The one solace that he has is that at least Lance doesn’t know that it’s him. 

“Hm…” Lance hums, continuing his pleasant work. “I can't just leave you out here. It’s getting cold now.” Keith freezes as Lance scoops him up in his arms, relaxing when Lance holds him securely to his chest. “How about we go bother your owner?”

Keith feels a glimmer of hope. Maybe Shiro hasn’t left yet! Lance walks him through his apartment and out into the hallway. He raps on the door to Keith’s apartment, but there’s no answer. He tries again, waiting a second longer, but there’s no answer. Lance huffs and looks down at him.

“Sorry, buddy, I tried. I guess you can spend the night with me,” Lance says, heading back into his apartment. “We’ll give your irresponsible owner hell in the morning.”

Great. Now Keith has something to look forward to…

Lance places him down on the floor and Keith has a chance to look around. He doesn’t know why, but he expected Lance’s apartment to look different. He expected some mess and a juvenile style, but it’s actually quite nice. The decor is simple and clean and there are some plants scattered around that brighten it up. Lance has a lot of pictures up, some are likely family and others are friends that Keith faintly recognizes from brief encounters in the hallway.

Lance places a bowl of water on the floor for him and then pads into his living room and sits on the couch to watch television. Keith follows suit because there’s not much else that he can do as a cat. Lance lets him jump onto the couch and sit next to him.

“Looks like we’ve both had rough days…”

Looking at Lance’s tired, sad expression, Keith wonders what’s been going on. It’s strange to suddenly get such a personal look into your neighbor’s life and this new information has him suddenly invested and just a little curious. He wishes there was something that he could do to wipe the frown off his face. 

As if on instinct, Keith crawls into Lance’s lap, sharing his warmth. To his relief, Lance gives him a small smile and rewards him with gentle strokes from the top of his head and down his back. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his conscience is telling him that this is dehumanizing. That he’s a human in a cat’s body curled up in his neighbor’s lap and soaking up affection not meant for him. 

Still, Lance scratching gently behind his ears has him letting his guard down and snuggling in closer. Then, his lids become heavier and heavier. He drifts off to sleep before he can even catch himself. 

When he wakes up, the clock on Lance’s wall reads five forty-five and Keith can hardly believe it. Ever since he was cursed nearly five years ago, Keith hasn’t had a full night’s sleep. Whatever cat instincts he’s adopted since normally has him popping his head up and alerted to every small sound from someone walking upstairs to a car parking in the lot next to the building. Yet somehow, he’s gotten more than a full eight hours of sleep. 

Next to him, Lance is still sleeping soundly. The soft sound of his rhythmic breathing is the only thing that he can hear. He’s exceptionally warm and the gentle pressure of his hand on his back is so comfortable that Keith is tempted to just stay there, but he has about three minutes tops until he turns back into a human. Carefully, he worms away from him and jumps down from the couch. 

It’s as he stretches that he morphs back into a human. There’s no stretching out the particular ache of being condensed into a eleven-pound cat. He tries not to do the normal yoga routine he does in the morning to make him feel human again. It’s weird enough that he’s naked in his neighbor’s apartment. Among the many other, more inconvenient aspects of this curse, he also loses his clothes when he transforms and it’s not like he can carry them around as a cat.

Keith freezes as Lance stirs and shivers in his sleep. Around his ankles is a blanket that Keith doesn’t even remember being there, which means he’s somehow slept through Lance even moving around to get himself one. Keith has the sudden desire to gently wake him and send him off to his bedroom for a more restful sleep, but that certainly would not go over well. Instead, he very carefully draws the blanket up from Lance’s feet and over his shoulders. This seems to bring Lance a little peace, he grasps at the blanket and curls up a little more.

Now, the only thing he has to do is sneak out onto the balcony and cross the divider to get back to his own apartment.

He just hopes that the busybody, old lady in the apartment building across from them isn’t up yet. 

Keith doesn’t forget to send Shiro a scathing text about how he locked him out on the balcony. Shiro responds with a call and flustered apologies, which Keith can’t help but accept. 

You steal a guy’s car once and you can never quite take the high road ever again. 

Otherwise, Keith does what he normally does in the morning when he gets back into his apartment. He finally takes a stretch and goes for an early run. He can never seem to sleep as a human anymore, so he’s learned to fill every waking moment he has with some kind of activity. Plus, a run before work does help him wake up, but he feels noticeably more energized this time around. He even manages to break a new record for his normal route. 

He’s practically on a high when he gets back to his apartment. As he’s inserting his key into the door, the door to Lance’s apartment pops open and he’s met with a hard stare. Lance is still dressed as he was when Keith left his apartment a couple of hours ago. 

“You,” Lance says, the accusatory tone making Keith flinch. There’s a part of him afraid that Lance is about to identify him as the cat that he was snuggled up to last night, but instead, he asks, “Do you have a cat?”

“Uh…” Keith hesitates as Lance’s eyebrows raise comically as he awaits an answer. “No?” he decides on, attempting to save himself from Lance’s wrath. It’s technically not a lie. He doesn’t have a cat… he just is a cat for part of the day.

Lance pauses.

“... No?”

“No,” Keith affirms, a little more sure this time.

“Oh,” Lance says, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Then, who… Where did… How… Hm...”

Keith feels just a little guilty that he hasn’t let Lance on to the truth after he rescued him from the outdoors. He can see Lance silently running through possibilities of how a cat could get on to a fourth floor balcony if it didn’t belong to either of them. It’s not like Keith could come up with a reasonable excuse. 

“I got to get ready for work…” Keith says, after a moment.

“Uh, yeah,” Lance says.

Keith turns to enter his apartment, but pauses remembering the soft melancholy look on Lance’s face when he was on the balcony the night before.

“Have a good day, Lance,” he says.

Lance raises an eyebrow and then he’s back to his distaste for him.

“Yeah, whatever,” Lance mutters and closes the door behind him as he slips back into his apartment. 

But Keith still finds that he means it and throughout the day, he catches himself thinking back to the troubled look on Lance’s face from the night before.

* * *

Keith finds himself spending more of his cat hours on the balcony after that night, but it’s not until a couple of nights later that Lance actually steps out on to it again. There’s a look of surprise on his face when he spots him.

“Hey,” Lance greets in a voice so gentle that he would never use it to greet Keith as a human. “I was beginning to think I imagined you.” Lance pets his head softly. “I guess I could still be imagining you,” he shrugs. “How did you get out of my apartment that night?” Keith meows, which he hates, but it feels wrong not to acknowledge Lance’s words. And, at the very least, it gets Lance to smile at him. “I don’t even know how you got up here, if you’re not Keith’s cat.” Lance looks over to Keith’s door and his brows furrow seeing that there’s a small crack open. “Weird…”

Lance looks just as melancholy as he did the last time that Keith saw him on the balcony. It’s so different than the animated expressions that he has during the day. It’s like he’s a different person. Maybe the shift in Lance’s personality day to night just resonates with Keith. During the day everything appears fine, but once the sun goes down, things get more complicated. It’s like there’s something solitary and painful about the night to Lance too. 

“You don’t have a collar,” Lance says, inspecting him. “I guess there’s no harm in letting you stay with me, maybe your owner will start putting up flyers soon.” 

Lance is chatty for someone speaking to a cat, Keith thinks, but it’s hard to complain when Lance seems to know exactly where to pet and scratch. 

Lance brings him inside an kindly places a bowl of tuna and water out for him. Like the other night, Lance relaxes into his couch and Keith follows him, searching for his calming hands and warmth. Lance welcomes his presence immediately.

“I get what they mean now,” Lance says. “Animals really are therapeutic.” 

Keith lays his head on Lance’s chest as he talks. Keith knows that it’s because he’s a cat that he has a much better sense of smell than when he’s human, but Lance smells so good and comforting. Keith can tell that he’s freshly showered and, even more pleasing, is the soft, faint scent of vanilla wafting off of him. This is the ideal place to take a nap, the feline senses echo in the back of his mind. 

“Sometimes I wonder whether or not it was a good idea coming here,” Lance says suddenly, just above a whisper. “I mean, I love my friends… They’re my family too, in a way. I miss my sisters and my mom though. It’s weird coming home to an empty house…” Lance even seems to notice that Keith is staring at him as he talks and pets his head. “You’re a very good listener,” he praises.

The sound of Lance’s stomach growling is abrupt and loud to Keith’s sensitive ears and his head pops up from Lance’s chest. The sound is followed by a laugh. 

“Sorry, buddy, I haven’t eaten today.” 

What?

It’s nearly ten at night and Lance hasn’t eaten all day?

“Maybe I should eat something before I go to bed.” Keith wishes he had the ability to scream “yes.” “Or, I could just wait until the morning.” And Keith actually tries to disagree with him this time, meowing angrily at him. Lance pauses and stares at Keith for a few seconds and then shakes his head with a laugh. “For a second I thought you were yelling at me.”

He was yelling at him! 

Keith gets frustrated as Lance relaxes back into the couch. No, Keith decides, Lance is not going to bed without eating something. As comfortable as he is, Keith stands up on Lance’s chest, getting the other man’s attention. Keith places his paws on Lance’s cheek smushes it in the same way that he’s seen Tama knead Shiro’s tummy and arms. It’s a useless effort, Lance only laughs, picks him up and puts him back on his stomach.

Keith glares at him, but now Lance is playing idly on his phone. He hates to resort to this, but if that wasn’t gonna work…

Lance jumps straight up from the couch when Keith digs his claws into his stomach. Not enough to pierce the skin, but enough to startle and sting.

“Dude!” Lance gasps, lifting his t-shirt to inspect the damage. There’s a small red line on his toned stomach, but no blood. “Watch the claws!” Lance sighs. “Well, now that I’m up,” Lance glances over to his kitchen, “I might as well make something to eat, right?”

Success. 

This job definitely would have been easier if he was a human, but claws certainly do have their uses.

* * *

Keith visits Lance often after that. Lance is only a bit suspicious of how he manages to disappear in the mornings just to materialize on his balcony in the night. For Keith, it's nice to have the company at night. For the longest time, Shiro wanted him to live with him, but Keith was set on maintaining some of his freedom. 

That didn't mean that Keith never got lonely at night. 

He takes a lot of comfort in visiting Lance when the sun goes down and, he hopes, Lance does too. After all, he's started leaving the door to his balcony open just a crack. 

Lance talks to him a lot. It's often about how much he misses his family, but it's not always. Sometimes it's about his friends, something that Hunk's done that he admires, about Pidge being a genius, or about how inspiring Allura is. He rambles and rambles like Keith is a blank page of a journal. After a few nights, Keith feels like he knows Lance a lot better than before. 

He tells Shiro as much when they go out for lunch one day. It's met with a hesitant expression.

"What?" Keith asks when he can't decipher it on his own. 

"I'm glad that you're seeing a new side of Lance," Shiro says after some thought.

"But...?" Keith follows suspiciously. Shiro doesn't say anything for a beat. "I can tell how disapproving you are," Keith continues unamused. "You can't just leave it like that."

"Have you considered that, maybe, you visiting Lance in this way is a bit of an invasion of privacy?" Keith blinks. "People are different around pets than they are around humans. You visiting him as a cat isn't the same as you being there."

"I dunno..." he mutters, thinking it over to himself.

"Think of it this way, you've changed in front of Kosmo, right? He's a dog. It doesn't matter."

Keith’s entire face heats and he can feel the burn on the tips of his ears and neck.

“I’m not watching him change!” His loud tone nets him a few disapproving and confused looks from the patrons of the restaurant. 

Shiro waves his hand in front of him, “I know, I know. What I’m trying to say is that Lance is letting his guard down around you because he thinks you’re a cat. He thinks he’s telling this to something that can’t understand him. He might be telling you things that he wouldn’t tell his friends or family. You’re not a cat… So, do you think that’s fair to him?”

Keith looks down and rubs his arm self-consciously. “No… I just… That wasn’t what I was trying to do. He just seems to be having a hard time. It’s like when I’m a cat, he feels a little bit better. I just… want to be there for him.”

When Keith looks up, Shiro is looking at him with a soft, fond look.

“Maybe you can be,” Shiro says. “Just when the sun is up.”

“We’re not really on good terms…” Keith mumbles, thinking back to Lance’s impatience with him in the hallway. “I was kind of rude to him when he first moved in.”

“Did you ever apologize to him?” Shiro asks.

“Not exactly…” Keith mutters. He rolls his eyes and sighs at Shiro’s stare. “No.”

“That’s a pretty good place to start,” he says. “Then maybe you can see about being his friend.”

Shiro makes it sound so easy...

“I guess,” Keith grumbles, folding his arms over his chest.

“Well, then give it a go.” 

“I guess…”

Shiro looks up then, a playful smile on his face. “You know, I’d kind of like an apology for every time you’ve called me a—what was it again—‘gay disaster…?’”

Keith’s cheeks heat again. 

“I don’t have a crush on him!”

“Clearly…”

“That’s not what this is!”

“Sure, sure…”

“Shiro!”

“What? I believe you…”

“Oh my God. You’re the worst!”

* * *

To his credit, Keith does try to befriend Lance. 

“Hey,” Keith says, when sees Lance waiting for the elevator in the apartment. 

Lance looks over to him with an arched brow, “Hey.”

“It’s… really wet outside,” Keith attempts, feeling awfully like this is the first time he’s ever spoken to another human being in his entire life. He tries not to bang his head against the wall.

“Yeah,” Lance says, uninterested as he plays on his phone, “that’s what happens when it rains.”

Part of Keith just wants to die right there, but he decides to stick it out.

“So, uh, how are you?”

Lance stops tapping on his phone to look at him. Keith half expects it to be a look of annoyance, but he’s pleased to find that there is just surprise on his face. The elevator doors open and they step in.

“Good, I guess. You?”

“Good.” Keith can’t come up with anything else to continue the conversation, but the elevator ride is short enough that it’s not too awkward. That’s all they say until they get to their apartments. 

To be honest, Keith is satisfied enough with their chat, if it was long enough to be considered one. It’s ended better than literally any of their other interactions while Keith was human. 

But, Lance’s small wave to him and quick “see you later, man” before he enters his apartment leaves Keith with a little smile on his face.

* * *

Keith doesn't visit Lance after his talk with Shiro. It's painfully obvious to him now that visiting him as a cat was not okay. 

That doesn't mean that Keith doesn't miss it. Doesn’t miss him. 

He slept so well when he spent the night at Lance's, he doesn't sleep through the night in his own apartment. He misses the way that Lance talks to him. He misses the smell of vanilla. That one is more embarrassing but doesn't make it any less true. 

He can't help but wonder if Lance misses him too. 

He feels a little guilty thinking about it. He hopes that Lance doesn't ever wait for the little black cat on his balcony when the sun goes down. 

It’s not with the intention to see Lance that Keith goes out on the balcony again. Even cats need fresh air now and again. He doesn’t expect to see Lance there. At first, he thinks that it’s lucky that Lance is too preoccupied on the phone that he doesn’t notice him step out of his apartment.

He doesn’t need him thinking that he lied about not having a cat.

Then, he notices the troubled look on his face. Lance is holding himself as he talks on the phone, eyebrows knitted together in frustration. 

“How is Rachel feeling?” Lance pauses for the reply on the other line and sighs. “And the kids are sick too? No, Veronica. I’m not overreacting, Veronica.” Lance huffs, looking away and shaking his head as he speaks to the person on the other line. The tears in his eyes are glistening even under the darkness of the night. “How do you know that they’ll feel better?” Lance grabs the rail of the balcony so tightly that his knuckles go white. “Mom is sick too? Okay, I’m flying down there! I don’t care if it’s just a cold… No, this tech company doesn’t mean anything to me if I don’t have you guys.” 

Lance furiously wipes at the tears streaking his face as he listens to Veronica.

“I know... I know I still have you guys… I know… Yeah, okay. Thanks… I still want to talk to Mom, is she awake? Okay, great. Yeah… I love you too.”

Lance switches to Spanish when he gets on the phone with his mother and even though Keith can only understand bits and pieces of this conversation, it feels more like intruding now. No matter how hard he tries not to over hear he can make out Lance asking her how she feels and the stress in his voice as he tells her goodbye and that he loves her.

The phone in Lance’s hand drops to his side. Lance looks up at the sky and then closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Looking at him makes Keith’s heart ache and, desperately, he wants to do anything to alleviate it.

This counts as an exception, he thinks as he jumps the divider and nuzzles against Lance’s legs. 

Lance sniffs and crouches down to pet him.

“You’re back,” he says, “I was beginning to get worried. I heard things are rough for outdoor cats…” Keith looks up at him worriedly. Lance laughs weakly. “Sorry you have to see me like this,” he jokes. 

Even though it’s obvious that he’s in pain, Lance still goes inside and places food and water out for him. Only unlike the previous nights that Keith’s spent with him, Lance doesn’t go to relax on his couch. Keith follows him as he passes his living room and enters his bedroom. Keith watches as Lance curls into bed. 

In the back of his mind he remembers what Shiro told him not long ago. Lance thinks he’s a cat. If it was Keith—human Keith— standing next to his bed, Lance wouldn’t want him there. Lance wouldn’t let him see this side of him. 

Keith knows this. 

He knows he might be doing something really wrong right now.

Yet Lance is looking at him expectantly and he’s so clearly hurting tonight.

One last time, Keith thinks. He jumps on to the bed and curls against Lance.

“I know I’m being over dramatic,” Lance whispers, stroking Keith’s fur. “It probably is just a cold, right? It’s modern day… They’ll probably be fine in a couple days…” 

All of Lance’s words are logical conclusions, but he doesn’t seem to believe them as he speaks. Keith is sympathetic, if it were Shiro or his mother that was sick, he’d be just as worried. 

“I still hate not being there…”

Keith doesn’t take his next action lightly. It’s been a point of pride for him to refrain from what he’s about to do for the last four years and change, but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Keith purrs against him.

Literally purrs. 

Next to him Lance sniffs and forces a small smile as he continues to gently pet him.

“Thanks for being here tonight.”

Keith can’t bring himself to do anything until Lance calms down and he can hear his breathing slow. The soft sound of his snore allows Keith to lower his guard and, once he does, he realizes how tired he his. Almost immediately after Keith drifts off to sleep in the warm comfort of Lance’s bed.

When Keith wakes up in the morning, his head is resting on something firm and soft. The way that he’s wrapped around it is like a boa constrictor with his arms pulling it close and a leg thrown over it for good measure.

It’s been so long since he’s slept like this, he thinks, curling closer to the enjoyable heat. It’s bliss. He doesn’t want to move for the rest of the day, he thinks, burying his face deeper into the softness and tightening his arms around it. Even the smell is nice, every deep breath pulls in the scent of sweet vanilla.

Keith pauses. Vanilla? Keith’s eyes snap open in a panic to meet the white of a t-shirt. In his arms, Lance is sleeping with his chin resting on his head and arms wrapped around him. Every bit of Keith’s calm, contented state melts rapidly and is replaced with horror.

Quickly, different scenarios rush through his mind. He needs to figure out how to untangle himself from Lance and leave undetected. They’re so tied up in each other that Keith can’t figure out a way to get out without waking him up.

This is not going to go well. He’s naked and holding his neighbor, who doesn’t even like him, in his bed. Lance is going to be furious.

Above him, Lance stirs in his sleep a soft sigh slipping from his lips. 

Keith has to at least try.

Maybe if he’s very careful Lance won’t notice. 

Keith glances up to take a look at him only to be met with Lance’s open eyes. For a second, it doesn’t seem like anything registers on Lance’s face, but then his eyes widen and a look of shock overtakes his sleepy, blank expression.

“Keith? What the fuck?”

Oh, Keith is so screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned to see if I make any furry jokes.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://www.ayebibs.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

Lance, tied up in the comforter, trips over himself to get out of bed. 

“What the fuck?” Lance asks, getting to his feet. “Keith! What are you doing in my bed?”

Keith scrambles out of Lance’s bed, hunching over to cover himself to the best of his ability. This doesn’t seem to appease Lance at all, it just makes him even more panicked. 

“Dude!” Lance yells. “Why are you naked? Why are you in my bed? Why are you naked and in my bed? How did you get in here?” Lance continues to spiral, shouting his questions at Keith as fast as he can. “Did you break into my house?”

Keith puts a hand up in an attempt to appease Lance, but it seems to have the opposite effect.

“Nope! Nuh-uh, you gotta cover that with two hands!” Lance yells. Keith’s face is burning and suddenly he’s very, very aware of how naked he is. Lance groans and chucks a pillow at him to cover up with. “I just washed those pillow covers,” he says bitterly.

Keith wracks his brain for some kind of excuse to give Lance, but comes up empty. There’s no logical reason for him to be in his apartment right now… Will Lance even buy the truth?

“Dude, seriously,” Lance says, “what are you doing here? How did you get into my apartment and why were you in my bed?”

“You…” Keith’s panic makes it hard for him to say anything coherently. “You… I didn’t… Last night… The balcony…”

“What?” Lance demands.

“I didn’t break into your house!” Keith finally manages to get out.

“Then how did you get in here?”

“You…” Keith groans, running the hand that isn’t shielding his crotch with a pillow through his hair. 

How can he even explain this? He’s going to sound like a crazy person. Not that he doesn’t already look like one… It’s not like he has a choice anymore. Realizing that he doesn’t have much of a choice at least guides his words a little better. 

“You let me in last night,” he says, with a small air of finality.

“I think I would remember that!”

Keith sighs, “On the balcony. You let me in through the balcony.”

“What are you even saying? I didn’t let anyone in my apartment last night. I was alone the whole night.”

“The cat. You let the cat in.”

“What…? What does that have to do with anything? Is that really your cat? Why…? What the fuck are you even trying to say right now?”

Lance is asking so many questions and Keith has to rein in his own frustration. Pre-curse, if anyone tried to explain this to him, he’d be ready to square up. 

“I’m the cat, Lance!”

Lance is the quietest he’s been for the last few minutes. His mouth opens for a moment, but then closes. 

“What?” He yells, finally managing to get something out. “What kind of furry shit are you on about?”

“I’m not-“ Keith groans and takes a breath to rephrase. “I am literally that black cat. The one that’s been visiting you every so often the last couple of weeks.”

“What are you even saying? You sound out of your mind!”

“Lance, Lance,” Keith tries to reason with him. “Just listen to me, please. Four years and eight months ago I was cursed by a witch. Since then, every night I turn into a cat. From the moment that the sun goes down to the time it rises, I’m that black cat!” 

Lance shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re insane.”

“I can tell you about those nights! The first time you let me into my apartment my brother accidentally locked me out onto the balcony because he thought I was with my mother. You walked me through your apartment to knock on my door, but I couldn’t answer because you were literally holding me.”

Lance is shaking his head in disbelief. 

“I know that your family is sick…” Keith says softer this time.

“The walls are thin,” Lance says harshly.

“Think about it. Every night you closed the balcony door behind you. How did you think I left the apartment?”

“I-“ Lance pauses. “I… don’t know,”

“Or that I got on to a balcony on the fourth floor without being someone else’s cat?”

Lance’s eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“Prove it. Right now. Turn into a cat.”

“... I can’t. I don’t have control over it. It happens every night.”

“Fine! Come back tonight and, if you can’t, I’m getting you evicted!”

“Okay, okay!”

Silence falls over them and Lance gestures to the door. 

“What are you waiting for? You can go!”

Keith’s face is probably as red as an apple. “I, uh… Can I borrow a towel?”

“For fuck’s sake…”

* * *

Keith shows up at Lance’s apartment that night as promised. His heart thumps wildly in his chest as he raps on the door. To say that he’s nervous is an understatement, the only two people that know about the curse are his mother and Shiro. Other than them, Lance will be the first person to watch him change from a person to a cat. 

Keith jumps when the door to Lance’s apartment pops open and he’s met with a suspicious, annoyed expression. He prefers the looks that Lance gave him as a cat, but that’s what’s gotten him into trouble to begin with. 

Lance doesn’t greet Keith or welcome him in, all he does is step aside to let him enter the apartment. He stares him down as he walks in and stands awkwardly in his living room. It’s so uncomfortable that Keith has to fight the instinct to leave. 

“About coming into your apartment,” Keith starts the beginning of an apology, but Lance puts a hand up, his glare never subsiding.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Lance says. “You’re here to prove to me that you’re cursed. All I want to see is how you’re going to prove to me that you’re going to turn into a cat. And, when you can’t, I just want you to leave.”

Keith huffs. He knows he’s in the wrong, but Lance’s anger is a little agitating. 

“I’m not making this up,” Keith says stubbornly. “I could have given you more reasonable explanations for why I ended up in your apartment this morning, but I gave you the truth! Who in their right mind would say that they turn into a cat every night?” 

The moment that Keith returned to his apartment, finally put on a some clothes, and let the haze of sleepiness and panic fade, his common sense returned. He could have told him that he was drunk and stumbled into Lance’s apartment because he left the door open, thinking that it was his. But, no, Keith went for the ridiculous, tragic truth. That’s how he ended up in this situation. Well, that and making the extremely poor decision to ignore Shiro’s advice. 

“Maybe you’re covering up something weird,” Lance says. 

Keith wants to tear his hair out. He knows it shouldn’t matter. In a matter of minutes, Lance will see that he was telling the truth. It still sucks when someone doesn’t believe you, even if what he’s saying sounds absolutely absurd. 

“Just wait!” Keith huffs. 

Both men stand in mirroring positions, arms crossed over their chest and sour faces looking in opposite directions. 

“How long is this going to take?”

“It’s not like I can control when the sun goes down!”

Lance rolls his eyes and Keith can’t help but feel irritated. What is he supposed to do? Will the sun into setting?

As it gets darker, Keith notices Lance looking at him. The intense gaze makes him feel opposite things. Part of him is relieved that there’s at least a tiny part of Lance that’s expecting for him to turn into a cat in the next few moments. The other part is feeling surprisingly embarrassed, like Lance is about to catch him undressing. Which is strange because Lance has already seen Keith completely naked.

He supposes that maybe there is something demeaning about a well built twenty-something turning into a smaller than average black cat. 

It feels like ages for the last tint of orange in the sky to fade to deep, dark blue while Keith is under Lance’s eyes.

His transformation starts the way it always does, the unsettling light tingle that he feels on every inch of his skin. There’s nothing about this that’s pleasant, it’s the feeling of nails lightly scratching him as they run the expanse of his body.

The transformation isn’t painful. 

No, it’s a different kind of torture. It’s a crawling, anxious sensation. It amplifies as Keith shrinks from his full size to a small cat. It’s the feeling of being in the wrong skin and the reality of having the sentience beyond what was ever meant for this form. 

Then, there’s the flash of light that always comes before his vision drops to a foot above the ground. He can only see a small sliver of Lance's floor at first, his t-shirt obscuring much of his view. Normally, Keith undresses before he transforms if he can. He figures that Lance would prefer it if he stayed clothed.

He wiggles out from under his clothes and stares up at Lance. He's not surprised to find him staring at him with his mouth parted in surprise. All Lance can manage for a minute or two is unintelligible babbling and then he takes a deep breath and starts again.

“No,” he says firmly shaking his head. He points at him. “You are not Keith. You are an adorable kitten.”

Keith is a full grown cat, just so we’re clear. 

Lance shakes his head again and stares down at him, giving him a long hard look in the eye.

“No,” he says again, but Keith watches as Lance’s disbelief crumbles. “Oh my God,” he drops to sit cross-legged in front of him. “No way,” he breathes. “You almost have the same eyes.” He hesitates, “If it's you, meow.” 

He says it so seriously that Keith, very briefly, considers staying silent or just walking away. Just to mess with him. He’s not that mean. 

He meows and Lance's eyes widen.

“Again.” Keith meows again. Lance repeats himself and so does Keith. “Holy shit…” Lance’s hand comes out to pet Keith’s head. “You turned into a freaking cat.” 

The hand caressing his head suddenly stops, realizing what it’s doing. Lance is frozen in front of him. Color slowly rises in his cheeks and Lance withdraws his hand quickly. 

“That was you the entire time? Sleeping on the couch and in the bed with me?” There’s a sudden shift in the mood, awkwardness tinting the room. “Listening to me talk about my friends and my family?” Keith wishes that he could talk, explain himself, but he has no chance to as Lance continues. “And last night…” Lance scrambles to his feet. “Did that entertain you? Was it funny? Watching me…?” Lance is too embarrassed to finish his sentence.

No! Keith wants to yell at him. That wasn’t it at all. Every night, Keith is inundated with the desire to be a human, but he wonders if it’s ever been this intense. Desperately, he wants to explain himself. To tell Lance that he had no bad intentions, that all he wanted was to provide any relief he could. Everything he wants to tell Lance burns inside of him, it’s overwhelming and painful. It’s just not fair.

“I… really want you to leave,” Lance says. Keith looks up at him, hoping and trying to convey the miserable, ferocious cloud of words swirling in his mind. Lance just looks back at him, the hurt evident on his face. Keith takes a glance at Lance’s closed front door. Lance sighs, “I guess you can’t leave if I don’t open the door for you.”

How embarrassing.

Lance gathers Keith’s clothes from the floor and opens the door leading out into the hallway and opens the door to Keith’s apartment. Lance doesn’t take a second to look around or even look at him before muttering a goodbye and leaving his apartment.

Alone in his apartment, Keith stares at the door. 

* * *

"You what?" Shiro asks loudly as they lounge on Keith’s couch that weekend. 

Keith's cheeks burn. "It was an accident! I fell asleep."

"And you woke up in his bed?"

"..."

Shiro covers his face with his hand, "I'm embarrassed for you. What did I tell you about going over to his place?"

"I didn't mean to. He was out on the balcony and he was sad... It just happened! I didn't plan on it happening."

"And that's how you ended up telling him about the curse?"

"Yeah. Now he thinks that I was just coming around because I thought it was funny. It was horrible, Shiro. He was so embarrassed and I couldn't tell him that he was wrong. All I could do was stare up at him and listen as he just misunderstood. I couldn't even tell him that I was sorry... I hate this stupid fucking curse," Keith says bitterly, "I can't believe it's going to be like this for the rest of my goddamn life."

"You don't know that, Keith," Shiro says kindly, but there's something tense and anxious in his words.

"What? You think I'm just going to break the curse myself? After all this time?" Keith asks.

"I... I don't know," Shiro says hesitantly. 

For as long as Keith has known Shiro, he's always had all the answers. What he should do when he messed up, when he got a bad grade, how to impress at a job interview, relationship advice. He's always known the right thing to say, except when it came to this. Keith can tell that Shiro feels guilty about it, that he wants to step in and take care of him like he always has, but this is even out of depth for the most capable person in Keith's life. 

“How did your meeting with the witch from the forum go?” Shiro asks after a moment.

Keith groans and rolls his eyes, “I paid him two-hundred dollars so that he could tell me to bathe in lavender and hold my breath underwater for two minutes. I turned into a cat in the bath and just got lavender and water everywhere. All of this is useless.”

Over the last few years, Keith has tried everything that he could find to break the curse. He’s scoured the internet trying every home remedy for a curse that he could get his hands on. He’s done ridiculous things in public and by himself in hopes of breaking it. He’s spoken with countless “witches” and paid many of them for a possible solution. He’s lived with this curse for so long that he’s lost hope. 

“It’s not useless,” Shiro says sternly. Keith looks away, he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. He doesn’t want to be reminded of his fate. Shiro sighs and, seeming to understand Keith’s stress, changes the subject, “Maybe you can’t take control of the curse right now, but you can try to apologize to Lance.”

Great, from one sore topic right back to another.

“He won’t even look at me,” Keith mutters. 

He’s seen Lance a few times since the day he woke up in his bed, but every encounter has been awkward. The first time Lance saw him waiting for the elevator Lance turned on his heel and walked in the opposite direction, muttering something unintelligible about forgetting something in his car. Another time, Lance nearly walked into the door of his apartment trying to get away. Each and every time, there was a pained, mortified look on his face. 

“Have you said anything to him?” Shiro asks.

Keith sighs, “No.”

“Then, start with that.”

* * *

The next time Keith catches Lance, it’s early in the morning. 

When Lance notices him, just like all the other times, he looks for a way out immediately. Thinking about what Shiro told him, Keith fumbles for something to say. A million things to blurt out cross his mind, but the only thing that manages to come out is:

"Lance, wait."

Lance tenses and looks over at him, waiting for him to say something. 

"I..." Keith doesn't want to say everything he has on his mind right here in the hallway. He wants to explain why he visited him so many times and answer any of the questions that Lance has for him. "I'm so sorry," he says. Lance looks uncomfortable. "Can you let me explain myself? Let me buy you a cup of coffee." Lance hesitates. "If you don't like what I have to say, you can leave any time you want. And, if you're uncomfortable being around me, we'll be around a bunch of other people."

Lance sighs, "Fine."

Their walk to the café is a little uncomfortable, but it's two buildings down from their apartment and it doesn't take a long time to get there. Keith buys Lance's requested drink and places it in front of him on the table before settling into his own seat. Lance stirs his drink silently with the straw.

"So?" he asks eventually and Keith realizes that he can only pretend to drink his coffee, which is too hot to actually drink at the moment, for so long. 

"I wasn't trying to embarrass you," he starts with. 

"But you did," Lance follows up with immediately. 

"It wasn't about 'entertaining' myself," Keith says, cringing to use the same word that Lance used when he found out that Keith was cursed. "The first night, Shiro, my brother, accidentally locked me out on the balcony. He thought I was visiting my mother and that I left the door open by accident. I guess, because my fur is black, he didn't see me."

"Okay," Lance says, still as guarded as before.

"It was really cold that night and you gave me a place to sleep so I wouldn't have to sleep out there. Then, when you brought me in to your apartment, I started to learn more about you." Keith feels a little like he's baring his soul to Lance, the hands around his coffee cup feel damp and his heart is pounding in his chest. 

But, for all that he's put Lance through, he supposes that he can at least say this to him.

"It was the opposite of finding what you were going through funny. You seemed sad." Lance's eyes flit up from his drink to look at him and it makes Keith feel even more nervous, but he's already in this deep. "I don't know," he mutters, looking away so that he can bring himself to make it through this confession. "Maybe it's because I also feel shitty at night time that I felt like I wanted to do something? And when I came around as a cat, it seemed like you felt even just a little bit better."

Lance frowns, "But you didn't see anything wrong with hanging around as I spilled my guts to you when I thought you were a cat?"

"Not at first," Keith admits, "and then my brother pointed out that it was wrong. And it was wrong, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Even that night when you were talking to your family! I didn't feel like I could just go. You were crying and talking to me, I didn't want to just leave you by yourself. Then, when you were in bed, you said that you were glad I was there. I should never have come up to you that night, but after I did, it didn't feel like there was anyway to leave. And... it wasn't only about listening to you when you were sad. You were good company, even when you were in a good mood. It was nice just to hang around you while you cooked or cleaned your apartment. It was so much better than spending the night by myself in my apartment watching television for the whole night." 

He feels even more humiliated to admit this than the other things.

Lance’s face looks a little flushed, ”And then you fell asleep next to me?"

"Yeah. I... don't sleep that well at night anymore," Keith confesses, "but when I fell asleep in your apartment, I could sleep through the night. Before, I'd wake up before you did and I could leave through the balcony. That time, I just slept all the way through."

Keith lets his words hang in the air. Lance is silent for what feels like too long. He's staring down at the drink in his hands, looking as though he's in deep thought. 

"I've thought about it a lot since that morning," Lance says eventually. He still doesn't meet Keith's eyes, but he has his complete attention.

"What do you mean?"

"About you spending the night at my apartment.”

"And?" Keith asks tentatively.

"I don't think that I would be able to stay sane... I'm not saying that I think what you did is right," Lance says quickly, folding his arms over his chest. "But... if I had to spend night after night as a cat and couldn't do anything that I wanted to when the sun goes down? I'd probably do some crazy things too. Also," Lance clears his throat, "I wasn't really expecting you to say that you hung around because you thought it made me feel better. And it did, so I guess I can't fault you too much. So, I forgive you, I guess."

Keith blinks, he wasn't expecting Lance to forgive him. That wasn't why he was apologizing, he just wanted Lance to know that he didn't mean any harm. He gives him a small smile and Lance returns it before he seems to remember something.

"How did it happen?" At Keith's confused look, Lance clarifies, "How did you get cursed? You don't really wake up and find yourself cursed. At least, I hope not."

"It happened when I was in college. I bumped into a witch by accident and she made a scene. It was after I had an argument with a TA and her yelling just set me off, I guess. Then, she mumbled a whole bunch of nonsense. When someone tells you that you're going to turn into a cat, you brush it off... but then that night I turned into a cat and, for the last few years, it's happened every night.”

“That’s crazy,” Lance breathes. “She messed up your life—no offense—over something like that…”

“I’ve been trying to break this curse for years and nothing I do makes any difference,” Keith says.

“I’m sorry,” Lance says genuinely. He can’t seem to find anything else to say and Keith thinks that’s fair. There’s very little to say about someone being cursed to live half their life as a cat. 

“How’s your family?” Keith asks carefully.

“They’re good… they’re all feeling a lot better. For the record,” Lance adds, “I’m not a crybaby. It’s perfectly normal to be concerned about your family!”

Keith snorts, “I don’t think that I’m in any place to judge. I once tried to fight a twelve year old who called Shiro an ‘asshat.’”

Lance laughs for the first time in front of human Keith. “Please tell me that you were also twelve.”

“I wish I could.”

What was meant to be a brief apology, turns into a whole morning of conversation. Lance ends up telling him, properly this time, about his huge family that lives in another state and how much he misses them. He asks Keith more about his life as a cat, how he keeps busy and from going insane. 

They only move from the café when Lance gets a call from a friend who’s mad that he’s late to their movie night. As Keith watches Lance walk away, he can’t help but feel a little bittersweet. Things between them were settled now, but Keith wasn’t sure if they’d ever get a chance to talk like his again without the pretense of an apology.

* * *

Only, a few days later, Lance smiles at him as he catches him entering apartment on his way out.

“You know,” Lance says playfully, “I’ve been thinking.”

“About…?”

“We could start a killer Instagram.”

“What?” Keith lets out a laugh.

“You’re a cat that can understand me! Think about the killer photos we could take! We’d knock all those other cute cats out of the water! Hey! Don’t laugh, I’m serious here!”

Keith shakes his head. 

“Really though,” Lance says, “I was thinking, did you want to join me and my friends to watch the game this weekend?”

“Uh, sure,” Keith agrees before he can think much about it.

“Okay, cool!” 

Huh, Keith thinks to himself as he watches Lance wave goodbye and walk down the hallway. Shiro might not know how to break the curse, but he seems to know the answer to everything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://www.ayebibs.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

When Keith goes over to watch the game at Lance’s house, he surprised to find that Lance’s friends seem exactly the way that Lance described them. Hunk is as warm and friendly, Allura is as charming, and Pidge is just as witty as Keith expected. 

Keith would say that they’re all welcoming and easy to get along with, but there’s something just a bit off that makes him uneasy.

“Shit,” Lance says suddenly.

“What’s up?” Hunk is the first to ask. 

“I forgot the drinks. I only have club soda.”

Pidge makes a face, “Did you have a stain to get out of your carpet?”

“Hey!” Lance says, “Nobody complains when I make cocktails.” Pidge rolls her eyes. Lance thinks for a minute before he sighs, “The game starts in fifteen and there’s a convenience store around the corner. I’ll be back.”

“I can help you carry them,” Keith offers.

“Nah,” Lance says. “I forgot them and I don’t want you to miss the beginning of the game if I’m gone too long.”

Keith watches as Lance slips on a light jacket with mild panic. Is Lance really just going to leave him here with his friends that he barely knows?

Believe it or not, Keith is not a shining conversationalist. 

The door closes behind Lance and for a moment Keith stands awkwardly in the living room as the others set up chips and dip. It takes him a moment to excuse himself to grab cups from the kitchen. 

Pidge follows right behind him.

“You know where the cups are already,” she comments. Her tone is light enough, but for some reason, Keith feels uneasy at her words. 

“Uh, yeah,” he says, “I’ve been over a couple of times.” It’s not really a lie, he has been over to Lance’s apartment a couple of times. He just happened to have a tail when he was visiting.

Pidge hops up to sit on the counter and stares him down. Keith feels frozen under her stare. She’s so little, but so intimidating at the same time. As much as he wants to move and escape to the comfort of Lance’s living room so that he can stare at the pregame show and not say anything until Lance gets back with the drinks, he doesn’t feel like he can.

“So,” Pidge begins, “what exactly are you?”

Keith gives her a confused look. This is a question that he’s gotten plenty of times, but he wasn’t really expecting it from a member of Lance’s diverse group of friends.

“Uh, I’m half Korean and half Japanese?”

Pidge looks at him like he’s said something remarkably stupid.

“No,” she says, shaking her head, “what are you?” She says it this time with a different intonation, but Keith still doesn’t understand.

“I just told you…?” 

Pidge heaves a sigh, “No, I’m asking what you are? I can’t tell…You look too alive to be a vampire. You could be an elf, but you’re ears aren’t pointy, but I suppose you could have clipped them. I’d bet money on you being a werewolf.”

“I… What?” Keith blinks. “I’m a human!”

“No, you’re not,” Pidge scoffs. “There’s too much magic on you for you to be a human.”

“I’m a human! What are you?”

“A witch,” Pidge says simply.

Keith pauses, “A witch?”

“And what are you?” Pidge asks, still determined to get an answer out of him.

“Nothing!” Keith responds, still taken aback by the admission. “Human!” he corrects after a moment of thought, “I’m just cursed…”

Pidge blinks. “Oh…” She makes a confused face for a moment. “I guess that makes sense…” Keith doesn't quite understand why she's so perplexed, but before he can ask her, she's calling for the two in the living room. “Hunk! Allura! He's not a fairy, the poor guy is just cursed!” The other two materialize in the kitchen in, what feels like, a blink of an eye.

“Phew,” Hunk says, placing a hand on his chest, “we were really worried there for a second…”

“Yes,” Allura chimes in, “it would have been quite awkward if we had to chase away Lance’s neighbor.”

Keith doesn’t completely understand the big commotion about being a fairy. Everything he knows about them is emphatically not malevolent. A little glowing person with wings? Tinkerbell? That doesn’t really have him shaking. 

“What’s wrong with fairies?” he asks, his curiosity getting the better of him. 

“Other than that they’re demons?” Pidge asks like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Hey!” Hunk chimes in, “Even demons have some kind of moral compass!” Next to him, Allura nods. 

Okay, Keith thinks, there are some strong opinions about fairies in the room. 

Also, fairies and demons are real, so there’s that. 

“Forgive me if this is too personal,” Allura begins politely, “but what kind of curse are you under? We can see the magic on you and, normally, we wouldn’t be able to pick out a human with a curse on him.”

Pidge crosses her arms over her chest and looks up in thought, “It must be something bad.” 

Then, the three of them are staring at him expectantly.

Somehow, Keith has made it nearly five years without telling anyone but Shiro and his mother, but in the span of two weeks double the number of people are finding out.

“I, uh, turn into a cat.”

There’s a moment of silence as they blink at him.

“You… turn into a cat?” Allura asks. “Werewolf was a good guess, Pidge,” she commends. 

“From the moment the sun goes down to the time it rises.”

“That’s kind of cute!” Hunk says, a smile cracking on his surprised face. 

“Not when you’ve spent as much time being a cat as I have,” Keith states.

“How long?”

“Almost five years.”

“That’s an extremely long amount of time. Most curses are small,” Allura says.

“And rare,” Pidge adds. “Curses are easy to get wrong. A misstep and you might accidentally curse yourself.”

“It’s normally something like bad luck for a day or a week. An insect or rat infestation at the worst. Not something like this! Whoever cursed you must have a decent mastery of magic. If they made a minor mistake, they could have easily turned themselves into a cat for life… or worse!” Hunk fills in.

“Do you know about these kinds of curses?” 

Keith knows better than to get his hopes up. He’s met plenty of “witches” over the years, supposedly well versed in even complicated spells. He’s spent thousands of dollars on so-called experts in hopes that they could break the curse. The chances that Lance, his neighbor of all people, has witch friends that could help him break the curse are slim. 

Still, he’d be doing himself a disservice if he didn’t at least ask. 

“Not really,” Allura admits.

Keith only gets to feel disappointed for a moment before he sees a grin spread over Pidge’s face.

“But, I bet we could help you break it!” Pidge says.

Hunk nods, “Any friend of Lance’s is a friend of ours.”

“Wait,” Keith says, “does Lance know that you are all witches?”

The air in the room stills and the other three turn to look at each other, hesitancy in their eyes.

“Not… exactly,” Hunk says.

Keith arches an eyebrow, “What does that mean?”

“Hunk and I met Lance in high school, but you can’t just up and tell someone you’re a witch, especially when you’re teenagers.”

“What about you?” Keith asks Allura.

“I met him in college.”

“She went to a magical prep school,” Pidge says.

“Like, Hogwarts?” Keith can’t keep himself from asking.

Allura groans, “No, not like Hogwarts.”

Pidge laughs and waves her hand in a “so-so” fashion, “Not like Hogwarts, more like Beauxbatons!”

Allura huffs, but doesn’t argue. It wouldn’t take a genius to know it would be fighting a losing battle. 

“So, why haven’t you told him yet?”

Another pause.

“We've known him for so long!” Hunk cracks. “How do you tell someone you’ve known for more than ten years that you’re a witch?”

“... Doesn’t that mean that you’ve had more than ten years to tell him?” Keith asks.

“Listen,” Pidge says, “don’t judge us. It’s not like Lance knows you’re a cat.”

“He knows,” Keith says simply. Since he’s taking the moral high ground in this conversation, he’ll conveniently leave out the disaster that was Lance finding out about his curse. No one needs to know about that. 

“I told he wouldn’t combust if he found out,” Allura says. 

The sound of the front door’s lock clicking makes everyone in the kitchen tense and shut their mouths. They listen as Lance stands in his living room, knowing he’s confused to find no one there. It takes no time at all for Lance to pop into the kitchen holding up a full, plastic bag.

“Hey, got the drinks! What are you all doing in the kitchen?” Lance stares at them expectantly, arching an eyebrow when no one answers him. “... What am I missing?”

From Keith’s viewpoint, the next hour is a wild ride.

There’s a lot of shouting, at first just from Lance who, despite knowing Keith is cursed, can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that he’s befriended witches. Then, Pidge and Allura begin yelling back defensively. Poor Hunk tries to referee but gets caught up in the noise, his voice soon blending in with his friends’ voices. Awkwardly, Keith sits by himself in an armchair between the two parties. It’s certainly a weird feeling to be literally in the middle of a fight, but not actually involved for once. 

Just like when Lance found Keith naked in his bed, he demands proof. Keith isn’t sure if it’s the high emotions or if Pidge is just naturally inclined to set things on fire because that’s what she does to Lance’s poor houseplant in the corner of the room. Then, there’s the frantic scramble to put it out before the fire alarm goes off and the whole building has to evacuate. 

Spells to put out fires, apparently, do not come as naturally to her.

Allura dumps a huge bowl of water on it which must be cleaned up immediately because, according to Lance, “it’s a wood floor, damn it, and I’m getting my deposit back.”

They eventually drop back on to the couches, more exhausted than when they started.

“So,” Lance says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “let me get this straight. What you’re saying is that, by coincidence, I have befriended three witches and a cat at different points in my life.”

“Not a cat.”

Keith wonders whether he should be offended that Lance referred to him as a cat, rather than cursed.

“Think of it this way,” Allura says, “it’s like when people LGBT people just naturally gravitate towards one another, but there just happens to be one straight friend. You, in this scenario.”

Lance makes a face, “Not who I want to be compared to.”

So, Lance isn’t straight, Keith thinks, taking note of that information for absolutely no reason at all.

Lance crosses his arms over his chest, “I can’t believe you guys kept this from me for so long.”

“We didn’t how to bring it up!” Hunk says, clearly feeling a little guilty.

“Well, I guess it’s impressive considering he didn’t even last a month,” Lance points at Keith with his thumb. Keith should feel offended, but he’s just relieved that Lance didn’t go into detail. “Does that mean you guys can help Keith break his curse?”

“Well, we don’t know,” Allura says. “As we were telling him earlier, curses are somewhat rare. Especially ones as severe as the one he’s enduring.”

“But we’re going to give it a try!” Hunk says.

“We’re going to figure it out,” Pidge says confidently. “... We just need to do some research first.”

Pidge, Hunk, and Allura are all smiling at him and it’s unexpectedly easy to return a smile. He knows the feeling bubbling inside of him is optimism, even though it’s so overshadowed by anxiety. He wishes he could be as confident as they were.

* * *

Even the text from Pidge saying that they might have found something does nothing to dredge out any hopefulness. 

But, it does get Lance knocking at his door an hour before they’re supposed to meet at Pidge’s apartment. 

“Hey,” Keith says, eyes trained on the bag in Lance’s hands. “Doesn’t Pidge live like fifteen minutes away? I thought we’d leave a little later.”

“Yeah, but she texted me some important steps for the ritual.”

“Steps?” Keith asks.

“Yeah,” Lance says as he enters the apartment. 

It feels a bit strange to have Lance in his apartment after he’s spent so much time over at his. He wonders if Lance notices the differences in their apartments, how much emptier and plain his is in comparison to Lance’s. Lance doesn’t take a moment to look around, instead, he’s completely focused on the contents of the bag in his hand. 

Lance makes himself comfortable on Keith’s couch and waves him over before dumping the contents on the coffee table. Keith looks over them blankly for a moment while Lance smiles next to him. The items laying on the table aren’t foreign to him, but he doesn’t really know what they’re doing there.

“Why is there makeup and a cat costume on my coffee table?” Keith asks, arching an eyebrow.

“It’s part of the ritual!”

“What am I supposed to do with it…?”

“Put it on, obviously.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know? Maybe it’s symbolic? Like virgins wearing white for rituals?”

Keith uncaps a tube of black lipstick and twists it up.

“What the hell is this supposed to symbolize?”

Lance shrugs, “I don’t know, man. I’m not a witch! Pidge just said to put it on before we came over.”

Keith sighs and moves to apply the lipstick, but Lance is quick.

“You’re just going to apply a full face of makeup without a mirror?”

“My brother is the one into makeup, not me.”

Lance shakes his head and takes the tube of lipstick. “Let me do it.”

Lance scoots closer to him, knees touching his as he applies the lipstick for him. Immediately, Keith gets the familiar whiff of vanilla. He has to remind himself not to be creepy and breathe it in. 

Keith has had makeup applied for him before. When he used to live with Shiro, he used to watch him put on eyeliner and mascara as part of his daily routine. When Shiro offered to put some on for him, he agreed. He was fidgety, hated the feeling of foundation caking his skin, and didn’t really appreciate being accidentally stabbed in the eye. He hasn’t experimented with makeup since.

It’s so much more relaxing than he remembers, he thinks. His eyes flutter closed as Lance gently drags the lipstick over his lips. It comes to an end pretty quickly and there’s a pause that makes Keith open his eyes. Lance is holding an eyeliner wand with a perplexed expression.

“It’s kind of awkward to put it on at this angle.” 

Keith is paralyzed as Lance moves to straddle him on the couch, placing a knee on the other side of his. Okay, this was not how he expected Lance to put eyeliner on him. He holds his breath as Lance tilts his chin up and swipes the cool eyeliner across his lid followed quickly by a quick coat of mascara. When Lance’s phone beeps and he pauses to look at it, Keith opens his eyes to openly stare at Lance. Lance doesn’t move from above him as he types on his phone. 

He’s never been this close to Lance as a human and it’s making his heart thump wildly in his chest. From this distance, what Keith has already known since he saw Lance on the balcony that night is so obvious. 

Lance is beautiful.

Fuck. Keith thinks. He is a gay disaster. Maybe even more than Shiro. Not that he’d ever mention that to him. 

Keith feels like he’s been caught ogling when Lance slips his phone back into his pocket and brings his attention back to Keith. Instead, a smile breaks out on Lance’s face as he looks straight at him. 

“Actually,” Lance says, “all this black makeup makes your eyes look nice.”

“What do you mean ‘actually?’”

Lance grins as he gets off the couch and grabs the cat ears and tail, “Nothing. Pidge says she’s all ready for us, you just need to put these on.”

“... I’m not putting those on.”

“It’s part of the ritual!”

“I have to put them on now?”

“Yup.”

Keith groans and swipes the ears from Lance’s hands. 

“Why do you even have these?” Keith asks, placing them on his head.

“It’s from an old Halloween costume, I was a black cat two years ago. It’s been sitting in my closet ever since. Aren’t you lucky?”

“Yeah, sure, that’s what I’d call it. ‘Lucky.’” 

Keith feels the blood rush to his face at the thought of Lance in a skin tight, black cat costume and refuses to meet his eye as he puts on the cat tail. 

At least he’s not wearing a catsuit. He’s just in a sweater and jeans. 

Not that it makes him feel any better as he and Lance walk to Pidge’s apartment. 

Keith's ears burn as people's heads turn to look at him with confused expressions. Lance, on the other hand, seems to find the whole thing very amusing. He's barely able to stifle his laughter when they hear a child whine:

"Mom! Mom! You lied! You said I could only wear my costume on Halloween, but that man is wearing his now!" 

The child's teenage brother snorts, "Yeah, I don't think that's the same kind of costume."

Ugh. Keith could just disappear.

The walk to Pidge's apartment could not possibly seem any longer. 

Allura is the one to answer the door and immediately her gaze is drawn to the top of Keith's head, then drags down to his face, and, finally, to the tail Keith's wearing. Her eyebrows knit together and she opens her mouth to say something before she shakes her head and lets them into the apartment.

Keith isn't sure if Pidge's apartment looks like a witch's or if it's just extremely cluttered. There are books littering the floor, piled high in the corners. There is something that looks decidedly like a cauldron off to the side, accompanied by an empty bird cage. Crystals and, strangely enough, an unidentifiable skull hang from the ceiling randomly. It's hard to walk amongst all of the trinkets that are dropped around.

"No," Allura answers his silent question, "not all witches are this messy."

"So this is why I've never been here," Lance says. 

"I heard that, Allura," Pidge yells from another room. "This is a collection, not a mess."

"Sure it is, you hoarder!" Lance yells back. 

Pidge and Hunk enter the room with a huge mug and some lemons in hand. 

Pidge looks like she wants to defend herself against Allura and Lance's judgment, but her attention is completely taken by Keith's get up. At first, she just snorts, but before long, she dissolves into unabashed laughter. Her raucous laughter is quickly followed by Hunk's and Allura's, which are tamer, but still as embarrassing. 

"What are you laughing at?"

"What am I laughing at?" Pidge can barely get through her words. "Why are you dressed like that?"

"Didn't you ask me to come dressed as a cat?"

Okay, saying it out loud sounded stupider than in his head. 

"Why would I do that?" she asks. "That's like the opposite of what I need you to do."

Keith's eyes snap to look at Lance who is grinning ear to ear.

"I'm going to kill you."

"It was payback!" Lance says, putting his hands up in self-defense. "To be honest," he laughs, "I didn't think that you'd actually agree to it!"

Keith rips off the tail and attempts to smack Lance with it, but it's hard to chase him around in such a cluttered room. Instead, he stands pouting with his arms crossed over his chest and trying to lick and wipe off the dark lipstick.

When everyone has been laughed out, Hunk hands him the mug they brought into the room. 

The liquid inside is brown and nondescript. 

"Do I have to drink this?"

"Not yet," Allura says. "It needs a drop of your blood."

"I have to bleed into this and then ingest it?"

"We don't make the rules," Pidge says.

"This part’s not a prank," Lance says, before adding. "As far as I know."

"Hey!" Hunk says, "We are serious witches!"

"Yes," Allura nods, "we definitely do not use magic for mostly recreational use, minor inconveniences, or to clean things."

Lance snickers, "Well, Pidge certainly doesn't."

Keith digs into his pocket and pulls out his knife. Everyone pauses to stare at it. It commands even more attention than his cat getup. 

"Why do you just have a knife in your pocket?" Lance is the one to finally ask.

"For situations like this," Keith says simply and it's hard to argue with that logic. "How much do I need to bleed?"

"That is a weird way to ask that," Pidge says, making a face.

"This is a weird situation," he counters.

"The quantity doesn't matter," Hunk says. "A drop of blood will work just fine."

Keith pricks one of his fingers with the knife and lets the deep, red droplet plop into the cup. Immediately, the brown liquid morphs into something else. The dull, muted color slowly becomes a mystical, deep purple. Without being stirred, the liquid seems to swirl in the cup. 

There's a certain nervousness, that the sudden change brings, but there's also a genuine hopefulness that builds inside of him. Over the years, there's been a lot of methods proposed to break his curse, but nothing like this. This is actual magic, he thinks staring down into the cup. This could actually be it. This is nothing like strangely colored tonics he's ordered off the internet and it's certainly not like taking a bath in herbs. 

"I just drink this?"

"Yup," Hunk says.

"Then you have to rub yourself down with lemon."

"I what?" 

"Rub the lemon on your skin," Allura repeats. "Just the top half of your body."

Keith shrugs, at this point, it wouldn't even be the stupidest thing he's done in the past hour, much less for the duration of the curse. 

He brings the mug to his lips and quickly downs the contents. The mixture tastes significantly less magical than it looks. He realizes that other than his addition, he has no idea what was actually in the cup. Since he's already ingested it, he makes the decision not to ask.

"Now, you can just rub your chest and arms with the lemon."

Keith follows their instructions and pulls off his sweater by the back of his collar. He takes half a lemon from Hunk and runs it along his arms and chest like it was soap. 

 

"Now?" Keith asks.

"We set it on fire." Pidge says, grabbing a trash can for Keith to drop the lemon in. She hands him a package of matches. Keith lights one on fire and drops it in the trash. It takes a few minutes for the lemon to catch fire. The five of them stare at the fruit as it ignites and slowly disintegrates. 

"Now what?" Lance asks, placing his hands on his hips and staring at the now empty trash can.

"Well, that's about it," Hunk says. "Do you feel any different?"

"Not really," Keith says. 

"Then, I suppose we just wait for the sun to go down," Allura says. 

The memory of the beautiful, purple mixture makes him excited. Despite himself, Keith thinks that this might be the solution. He hasn't felt this hopeful in such a long time. 

Only, as they watch the sun goes down through Pidge's window, the same feeling he's had every night for the last few years envelopes him. The tingling discomfort of being compressed into a small animal is exactly what he felt the night before. 

The four look down at him with disappointed expressions. Even in his small form, a thick, heavy feeling settles in his chest. He doesn't allow himself to wallow for very long. In a way, it's not that surprising. Nothing for almost five years has worked, why would this?

"I really thought that would work," Pidge says, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You are very adorable, if that is any consolation," Allura says.

"Oh, yeah," Hunk says in agreement, “Very cute. But, don’t worry buddy, we're not giving up on you! We'll figure it out."

Keith tries to remember Hunk’s kind words as he sits in Lance’s arms on the walk home and through the night, until he finally falls asleep.

* * *

When Keith steps out onto the balcony in the early morning, he doesn’t expect Lance to pop out there a few seconds later. It’s still quite early, everything is still and quiet. The sun has only peered up over the horizon, making everything look muted and blue. Keith has grown fond of this time, maybe out of necessity. Despite his disdain for the curse, there is something nice about the calm.

Lance doesn’t seem to feel the same way. At first, Keith thinks that he looks down and drowsy because he’s still wrapped in his pajamas, swallowed by his hoody and sweats. Yet, when he looks at his face, he’s still half asleep and stressed. Despite this, his face glows under the light blue lens of the dawn.

“You look like you do not want to be vertical right now,” Keith snorts, resting an arm on the banister and looking over at him with an amused smirk.

Lance pouts, “I want nothing more than to go back to bed.”

“Then why you out here?”

Lance looks away and shrugs noncommittally, “I figured you’d be out here this early.”

Keith stares at him. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, unsure of how to reply. 

“Oh… Why?”

“I was just thinking about yesterday,” Lance mirrors his actions, rubbing at the back of his neck before stuffing his hands into the pockets of his sweater.

“Oh…” Keith isn’t sure where Lance’s going with this. 

“That prank I pulled… I shouldn’t have done that.” Now Keith is completely lost. He’s not really sure what the big deal is. Dressing up like a cat and walking through the city was kind of embarrassing, but nothing worth actually apologizing for and certainly not worth apologizing for with that worried and troubled expression. “I didn’t really think about how disappointing it’d be if we couldn’t help break your curse.”

Keith lets out a quiet, airy laugh. “That’s why you’re making that face?”

“What face?” Lance asks indignantly, bringing his hands up to touch his cheeks. 

Keith laughs and shakes his head, “Nevermind!”

“No! What face?” 

Keith just shakes his head, “Don’t worry about it… I didn’t really expect it to work.”

“What?” Lance’s hands drop and the frown returns to his face. “Why?”

Keith shrugs and sighs, “It’s been so long. I don’t expect something to turn up now that changes everything.” The troubled expression on Lance’s face makes him continue. “I’ve tried a lot of things. I’ve scoured the internet for ways to reverse a curse, looked through old, dusty books at the library, commissioned ‘witches’ for charms, and hired others… Nothing has worked so far. I just don’t have expectations anymore.”

Slowly, Lance’s expression changes as Keith’s words sink in. Then, he grabs the balcony divider leaning in so far that Keith has to take a step back so that their foreheads don’t smash into each other.

“That’s stupid!”

Keith arches an eyebrow, “Okay, tell me how you really feel…”

“I’m serious!” Lance says adamantly. “Pidge, Hunk, and Allura told you that ‘witches’ on the internet are usually total fakes and scam artists! Of course all that stuff didn’t work! We’re going to help you break that curse!”

“I don’t know about that…”

“I promise you, we’re going to find a way.”

“I think they call that reckless optimism.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll get there one way or another,” Lance says. “We have all the time in the world.”

Oh. 

It hits Keith that he hasn’t told Lance. Somehow he’s left out a very important part of all of this. 

He opens his mouth to correct him, but the words stick to his lips and refuse to budge. If anything, the last few weeks has made it obvious that he should just be honest. Instead, he delivers what is almost surely a weak smile and says:

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

Lance folds his arms over his chest, “I am right.”

He’s wrong, the unforgiving voice in the back of his mind echoes. Yet, Keith still finds something endearing about Lance’s confidence in breaking the curse. Almost endearing enough for him to believe it. 

Lance yawns and rubs at his eyes. Keith’s tense, forced smile relaxes into a fond, relaxed one. 

“Go back to sleep,” Keith laughs, “before you pass out.”

Keith suddenly remembers the morning that Lance woke up to find him curled around him, but instead of drowning his embarrassment, his mind turns to another direction. Keith wonders what it would be like to, instead, be on the other side of the divider. To laugh lowly in his ear and slip his hand into his. To coax him back to bed, hold him to his chest, and experience the warmth that he only got a glimpse of that morning. His cheeks burn hot.

“I am not,” Lance holds up a finger as he yawns again, “tired.”

“Sure, you’re not. Go to bed, I’ll text you later.”

Lance gives him a suspicious look before sighing. “You better,” he says pointing at him, and then smiles, “... Good... morning?”

Keith nods, “Good morning.”

He watches as Lance slips back into his apartment and sighs to himself.

That fantasy is just as unlikely as breaking the curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long! Thanks so much for the kudos and comments, they motivated me to continue writing even when life got in the way. I'm looking forward to the next chapter, it should be fun.
> 
> [tumblr](http://www.ayebibs.tumblr.com)


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